Yuliia, our Ukrainian solicitor who leads Settled’s Ukraine advice service, was a panellist at the prestigious annual national conference of the Chartered Institute of Housing last month. The video above is of her summarising after the panel talks and Q&A.
In her presentation to housing and homelessness leads, Yuliia explained the UK’s three different visa schemes for Ukrainians, their successes and challenges – especially focusing on housing of course! She also highlighted the need to have reputable, accredited advice on immigration and associated benefits (from organisations such as Settled!); and our ability to raise and escalate complex cases directly with the Home Office.
“The biggest challenge for Ukrainians in the UK is actually housing – moving from hosts’ accommodation to private rented or social housing… because of lack of credit history and temporary immigration status. It’s a huge pressure for local authorities because lots of Ukrainians are faced with homelessness”.
Part of her talk shared good practice we have seen from some local authorities to facilitate effective move-on from host families to tenancies. She also shared Settled’s own multilingual leaflets on housing and homelessness rights, that are being very well used across the country – see here (Ukrainian) and here (English).
